The black kitten struggled from her arms and leapt to the floor of the platform, craning its head with shrinking curiosity over the edge.
Slowly, something familiar in the kindly face and the outstretched hands of the great physician made itself apparent to Deliverance’s benumbed faculties. Troubled, she looked long at him. Over her face broke a sweet light, the while she plucked daintily at her linsey-woolsey petticoat. “Ye can feel for yourself, good sir, and ye like,” she said in her sweet, high treble, “that it be all silk without’n a thread o’ cotton in it.”
As she spoke she drew nearer him, but before she reached him, put out her arms with a little fluttering cry and sank at the great physician’s feet.
When consciousness returned to her, she found herself seated on some gentleman’s lap. Her temples were wet with a powerful liquid whose reviving odour she inhaled. Not then did she realize that she was indeed seated on the lap of that austere dignitary, Governor Phipps. At perfect peace she sat with her golden head resting against his purple velvet coat, her eyelids closed from weariness, her confusion gone. Dimly as in a dream she heard the voice of Lord Christopher addressing the people.
“In this town of Salem, I had reason to believe, resided one who had recently come as a stranger among you. This stranger to you, had been my cherished friend, my confidant in all things, and he betrayed me. Traitor though he was, I could have forgiven him, perceiving now with clearer eyes his weakness against a great temptation, but he hath shamefully persecuted a child, which, of all sins, is the most grievous.”
The speaker paused and his piercing glance singled out one of the group of gentry, gathered on the edge of the crowd. The man thus marked by that gaze was Sir Jonathan Jamieson. A moment he returned that challenging, scornful look; then as the eyes of all near by turned toward him, his face whitened and, with a defiant raising of his head, he turned abruptly and strove to make his way out of the crowd.
“Let me pass, churls,” he cried fiercely, glancing round, “or I will crack your pates.”
So those who stood by, being yeomen, and naturally awed by those of gentle blood, drew aside at the threat, albeit they muttered and cast dark looks upon Sir Jonathan as he passed.
This scene was observed by very few, as the great body of people hung intent upon Lord Christopher’s words.